Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980Ti Xtreme Gaming Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Price

The Gigabyte GTX 980Ti Xtreme Gaming is currently available from Overclockers UK for £569.99 plus shipping. This is a considered investment and costs £60 more than alternatives like the Inno3D GeForce GTX 980Ti X4 Air Boss Ultra. However, the cheaper option features a slower core clock of 1152MHz and boost reaching 1241MHz. Furthermore, Gigabyte offers added value with the gorgeous LED fan rings and 12+2 power design with LN2 overclocking in mind. This emphasizes the product’s extreme performance and target demographic.

Overview

From a visual standpoint, the Gigabyte GTX 980Ti Xtreme Gaming is phenomenal and it’s so easy to fall in love with the stunning design. The professional looking black shroud and white accents coalesces in a such a beautiful manner and adds a level of sophistication to any system build. Additionally, the RGB ring lighting creates a vivid, distinct appearance without being too ostentatious. In my opinion, this is probably the best looking GTX 980Ti model I’ve seen and there’s a great deal of customization to suit a particular colour scheme. For instance, it’s possible to select your favourite solid colour or cycle through a number of classy transitions.

The graphics card isn’t style over substance though and features impeccable build quality to prolong the product’s lifespan. This includes a premium 12+2 power phase design and aerospace-grade PCB coating to protect against the elements. Not only that, the four 6mm and two 8mm composite heat pipes combines with three high airflow fans to offer a wonderful noise to performance ratio. During idle conditions, the fans turn off to maintain silent running which provides such a joyous PC experience. Once stressed, the fans only have a minimal effect on noise output while taming the GPU’s core to an average of 67 degrees Celsius. This makes it one of the quietest and coolest GTX 980 Tis we’ve tested.

When it comes to overclocking, the headroom is fairly restricted because of the extremely high factory overclock. Despite this, it’s possible to attain good boosts on the core and memory with a minor voltage boost. As always, your mileage may vary from the maximum results we encountered. Personally, I think we could have achieved a much higher score using Heaven 4.0. It’s a bizarre situation because there shouldn’t be such a major difference in stability between two graphics benchmarks. Nevertheless, the gains we encountered are worthy of praise and helped the GPU to score record numbers. I also really like the inclusion of an OC mode to reach stable, impressive gains without any knowledge of the overclocking procedure. This helps users without any experience who want to maximize performance without being worried about causing damage to their investment.

Unfortunately, even a ridiculously powerful GTX 980Ti is not capable of maintaining 60 frames-per-second on a 4K monitor with very high details. The technology just isn’t on the market yet, and you will need to buy two cards to provide a silky smooth experience without reducing settings. With Pascal and Polaris both around the corner, it might be better for 4K users to hold off. However, if you own a high refresh 1440P display or 3440×1440 21:9 panel, then the GTX 980Ti is a suitable choice. During our testing procedure, this became apparent, and it’s surprising how far an extreme version of the GTX 980Ti can move away from NVIDIA’s flagship, the Titan X.

Pros

12+2 power delivery and extra 6-pin connector for LN2 overclocking

Astonishing build quality

Decent overclocking headroom

Delightful RGB fan ring lighting

Great thermal dissipation

Fantastic aesthetics

Unbelievable stock performance

Whisper Quiet

Cons

£60 more than competing custom-cooled GTX 980Ti models

GTX 980Ti can’t handle 4K gaming on extreme presets

“The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980Ti Xtreme’s strict binning process and remarkable cooling hardware make it the perfect choice for consumers wanting the absolute best performance today. Furthermore, the LN2 BIOS and additional 6-pin PCI-E connector will appeal to professional overclockers looking to set new world records in industry-standard benchmarking software.”